The LuLac Edition #3845, July 30th, 2018

BOB CASEY’S NEW AD

Take a look t the latest Bob Casey ad. It is playful, to the point and will be run thousands of times before the General Election. In a time when people are in their separate political camps, this is a pretty good message.

SUE HENRY ON THE MOVE 

 Sue Henry taking it to the streets. (Photo: Kathleen Smith)

What did you do this weekend? I went to dinner, saw a baseball game on Sunday and then listened to a little  Todd Rundgren on Sunday night. Sue Henry though was beating the pavement doing door to door campaigning in her bid to unseat State Representative Eddie Day Pashinski.

SPEAKING OF PASHINSKI

He’ll be having his annual brunch reception at Genetti’s in Wilkes Barre. Sunday, September 16 at 11 AM - 1 PM

CARTWRIGHT ANNOUNCES LEGISLATION TO INCREASE ORGAN DONATION

EFFORT COMES AMIDST SHORTAGE, RESULTING IN THOUSANDS OF PREVENTABLE DEATHS EVERY YEAR

Congressmen Matt Cartwright  (Photo: LuLac archives)

Addressing our nation’s dire organ transplant shortage U.S. Representative Matt Cartwright ( introduced the Organ Donor Clarification Act on July 19th.There are 115,000 people on the organ transplant waiting list and 20 people die every day as they wait for an organ. This bipartisan legislation will remove existing hurdles for donation and test out new ways to increase donations.
“This is life and death; 20 people die every day because they could not survive the wait for a viable organ,” Rep. Cartwright said. “Kidney waiting lists in major cities can last from five to ten years, which is often longer than a patient can survive on dialysis.”
The number of people in the United States with kidney failure has increased by nearly 20% since 2000 and there are currently over 95,000 Americans on the national waitlist for a kidney. Each year 17,000 patients receive a kidney transplant, while about 35,000 new patients are added to the kidney waiting list. As many as 80,000 additional patients may be good candidates for kidney transplant, but have never even been listed.
This legislation removes existing barriers that donors face under current law and allows for a pilot program to test the effectiveness of non-cash incentives to increase the supply of organs for transplantation.
Currently, organ transplantation is governed by the National Organ Transplant Act (NOTA) of 1984. This law prohibits buying or selling organs for “valuable consideration.”
“Confusion about what constitutes valuable consideration hampers donation by scaring people away from reimbursing organ donors for things like medical expenses and lost wages,” said Rep. Cartwright. “Reimbursements are legal under NOTA, but the law’s lack of clarity and criminal penalties have created uncertainty that has prevented or delayed reimbursements in many cases. Additionally, this bill will allow experts and scientists to run pilot programs – subject to ethical review and government oversight – to test the effect of non-cash incentives in reducing the organ transplant waiting list.”
The expanding kidney wait list has also become a burden on our nation’s finances, as costs for dialysis and other intermediary treatments become more expensive each year. The taxpayer ends up footing the bill through Medicare and other social service programs. Experts project that eliminating the waiting list would save taxpayers well in excess of $5.5 billion per year in medical costs and billions of dollars more in savings to other social programs.  (Cartwright office).